The house didn't have a back garden, just a bit of earth with some stones and a tortoise that vanished from sight when it was rainy and there was just mud everywhere. There wasn't even a blade of grass on that patch of earth except for an old tree with lush, deep green leaves that grew on top. The old wooden trunk was a dark brown, almost grayish with age.

The day her family moved in to the house, she touched the bark of the tree and knew they were going to be further acquainted.

Whenever the house felt too crowded she would quietly steal away to the upper terrace where the tree displayed its leaves with all its glory and gave shade to those who sought its comfort. She sighed as she leaned against the trunk of the tree that was hanging over the terrace, the rustling sound of the leaves as the wind danced its way through them were like the soothing tones of piano music to her ears.

Everything was changing around her and she felt it hard to breathe at times. Everything was a hustle and bustle and at times she couldn't stop it all for just a minute to think. She had to go on with it and later think back on all that had happened as she sought comfort by the one thing that didn't seem to change; the tree that stood in her backyard, a mixture of grey and deep green.

She wished she knew why everything that happened upset her so much, she knew that somewhere along the course of her life she was bound to face all that but she felt desolate and foreboding sense of emptiness that felt like a stone in the pit of her stomach.

She had never been very close with her siblings but she had always leaned on to them, clung to them and sought support when she had desperately needed it and they had always been there, as the people she knew them to be but with time they seemed to change right before her eyes, they were different and they didn't have the time that they had spared for her before... they were moving on and she seemed to stand there all alone...just watching them go...

The evening her sister got married was the hardest she had to go through... the stone at the pit of her stomach weighed almost as much as a boulder now. She couldn't breathe and she needed someone to talk to her, someone who would tell her that she wouldn't be lonely, that everything was going to be alright but they were all too busy, it was a day to rejoice after all and the guilt that she wasn't rejoicing with the others was just too much for her to bear.

She ran to the terrace and cried her heart out in to the folds of her green dress. She knew no one would understand how she felt, she couldn't cry in to anyone's shoulder because from the eyes of anyone else this was only trivial, it was rather selfish... there was really nothing to feel miserable about.

Wiping away those tears she looked back at the tree and knew that she needed this. This space alone, the time alone to think about how she felt, she could read her own emotions like a book and she alone could get over them. She wanted someone to know exactly how she felt but she knew that that was not very likely.

The tree stood silent, listening to her every word and as the wind blew she could almost hear it calling out to her, telling her that everything was going to be alright.